No Churn Coffee Ice Cream With Flecks In

Asked by pauline78. Answered on 12th June 2014

Full question

I am just wondering if you are meant to be able to see the coffee in the No Churn Coffee Ice Cream because it looks to be fairly homogenous in the picture, but in mine you can see the coffee. I used Illy espresso coffee (the one in the tin). Thanks, Pauline

Our answer

Nigella's One-Step No Churn Coffee Ice Cream (from Nigellissima and on the Nigella website) uses instant espresso powder. Espresso powder is made by brewing ground espresso beans, drying them and grinding them into a very fine powder. This powder dissolves fairly readily in liquids and so when it is used in the ice cream it dissolves and mixes evenly into the ice cream base, without leaving any visible flecks of coffee grinds.

From the description it sounds as if you have used ground espresso beans rather than the espresso powder. The grind for espresso is fairly fine but unfortunately it is not really suitable for the ice cream as the coffee does not dissolve. Instead you see the coffee grinds in the ice cream. Also the ice cream texture will be slightly gritty. We suggest next time trying to find the instant espresso powder in a jar. In Europe Nestle instant espresso powder can be found in many supermarkets and in the US Medaglia D'Oro instant espresso powder is in many grocery stores.